Kate Ceberano

Catherine Yvette Ceberano ( or, born 17 November 1966) is an Australian singer and actress who performs in the soul, jazz, and pop genres, as well as in film and musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar.

It was then, in the late 1980s, that she earned a reputation for her soul, jazz and pop repertoire.

Radio stations labelled her as having "one of the greatest voices our music industry has ever produced".

The album included 16 hits from her career to date, along with two new singles: "True Romantic" (co-written with her Pash collaborator Mark Goldenberg) and "I Won't Let You Down" (a cover of the Ph.D single from 1980).

The band produced a Top 5 album in 1985 called Out of Mind, Out of Sight, before Ceberano found fame with her funk band I'm Talking.

I'm Talking are acknowledged as the band "who pioneered New York-style art pop in Australia during the Jurassic Period of Pub Rock".

The group was managed by Ken West, now known for being a co-founder of the Big Day Out events.

The group's debut album, Bear Witness, included three top ten singles and achieved a platinum sales certification.

Ceberano won the Most Popular Female Performer award at the 1986 Countdown Awards.

After the debut album, the group broke up and Ceberano went solo.

Ceberano's first solo album was the live recording Kate Ceberano and her Septet, released in March 1987.

The following year, she collaborated with Wendy Matthews on the album You've Always Got The Blues, which was the soundtrack to the ABC Television show Stringer.

The album peaked at No. 7 on the ARIA charts and earned her a nomination for the ARIA Award for Best Female Artist in 1988.

Her single "Bedroom Eyes" received a platinum sales certification in 1989.

In 1989, Ceberano released her album Brave.

The album was the 20th highest-selling album in Australia in 1989 and spawned four singles, including "Bedroom Eyes", which became the fifth highest-selling single in Australia in 1989 and the highest-selling single by an Australian artist that year.

Two tracks, "Young Boys Are My Weakness" and "Obsession", were recorded with Phil Harding and Ian Curnow at PWL Studios, with Harding recalling, "for us to work with such a great singer was an unusual treat."

At the 1989 ARIA awards, she won the ARIA Award for Best Female Artist and ARIA Award for Highest Selling Single for "Bedroom Eyes".

At the end of 1990, she received three Mo Awards for Jazz Performer, Female Rock Performer and Contemporary Concert Performer of the Year.

Ceberano contributed "Nature Boy" to The Crossing soundtrack, before releasing the albums Like Now in 1990 and Think About It! in 1991.

In 1992, she joined the cast of the Australian national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, taking the role of Mary Magdalene.

The album was the highest-selling album in Australia in 1992, certified four times platinum.

Three singles were released from the album, including "Everything's Alright" (with John Farnham and Jon Stevens), which peaked at No. 6 on the ARIA charts.

Ceberano won a Logie Award for Most Popular Music Video in 1993 for "Everything's Alright".

"I Don't Know How To Love Him" was the second single and won Ceberano another nomination for Best Female Artist in 1993.

Ceberano followed this success with a late-night cabaret show on ABC-TV called Kate Ceberano and Friends (1993–1994).

The album from the program was certified gold and peaked at No. 19 in 1994.

Ceberano travelled to New York and recorded a number of songs which were to appear of an album with the working title of Globe.

The album was scrapped by label Elektra Records.

She was nominated for another Best Female Artist at the ARIA Music Awards of 1995.

However, a number of recordings from this session appears on her 1996 album Blue Box which also went gold.

In 1997 she co-wrote and released "Pash", a pop song which went platinum.

The album Pash went to No. 5 on the ARIA charts, was certified gold.

Following the success of Pash, Ceberano released her first greatest hits collection, True Romantic: The Best of Kate Ceberano, in 1999.

Ceberano was the artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Catherine Yvette Ceberano was born in Melbourne, Australia, to an American father of Filipino descent and an Australian mother.

Her father is karate master Tino Ceberano, from Hawaii.

Her maternal forebears were some of the earliest settlers and government officials in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.

Ceberano first came to prominence singing back-up vocals with Melbourne, Australia band Models.

In 2019, she was one of the contestants in season one of The Masked Singer Australia as ‘The Lion’, where she was unmasked in episode seven, placing sixth.